Clean Your Diet Coke Habit

My past two blogs, I wrote about my past Diet Coke addiction and the potential health risks of aspartame.  If you're motivated to eliminate the not so "Real Thing" from your daily routine, here are some tips to help you detox from diet soda.

Registered dietician Eliza Zied MS, RD, CDN, and author of Nutrition at Your Fingertips, tweeted and blogged about her aspartame rehab, offering some suggestions.  Zied believes two servings per day of aspartame may not pose a problem for those without other medical complications.  However, since artificial sweeteners are present in everything from that can of diet soda you drink at the movies or with your lunch to sugar free yogurt, gum, candy, and in your skinny nonfat latte, the servings per day end up in the five to six plus range.  During her research for a post on MSNBC, Zied did find a suspected connection between aspartame consumption and metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, and kidney problems.  Like many recovering Diet Coke addicts, Zeid decided to go cold turkey, realizing one sip from that dewy ice cold can can lead her to fall off the wagon. 


1. Make a Trade: Substitute that afternoon or perhaps morning Diet Coke for seltzer with a splash of fruit juice or squirt of lime, flavored sparkling water, or unsweetened iced tea.

2. Take a Walk: Regular activity can help with that afternoon energy drop. Exercise leads to body awareness, which promotes cleaner eating.

3. Clean the Home Plate: Eliminate processed food and anything with an ingredient list you can't pronounce.  Shifting to a cleaner diet of fresh vegetables, grains, lean protein, and fruit will help with the detox process.  You are what you eat.

4. Water, Baby!: Crowd out unhealthy, chemical-filled beverages with a daily eight glasses of water.  We often confuse thirst for hunger which can lead to binge eating. Diet soda's caffeine is a diuretic while the sodium exacerbates thirst.  Do your body a favor.  Quench your thirst with water instead of a soda or "energy drink."

5. Take a Multivitamin: Packing in all our needed nutrients at meal and snack time is a stiff work order.  A multivitamin with plenty of water to detox the chemicals is a wise strategy.

6. Be Aware of Triggers: Perhaps a rushed lunch at your desk or drive through in the car triggers a craving.  Maybe it's a ballgame or the movies.  As the boy scouts say, "Be prepared."

7. Don't Skip: Avoid meal-skipping which can lead to overindulgence later on when you're famished and tired.  My high school lunches consisted of an apple and a can of TaB.  Not the healthiest choice.

Here's to clean living!

Beth